wut up dawg?

Bella got spayed on Sunday. She is now what Kevin and Chandra lovingly refer to as an “empty vessel.” They call Abbi a “shell of a dog,” and frequently reference her as “hollow.” It’s quite hilarious. Until Abbi gets pissed about the comments and tries to bite your face off. Bella has a much bigger mouth than Abbi, so I am going to try and refrain from calling her those names while she is in the same room. Her bite would take off a hell of a lot more than the tip of my nose.

I started arranging for her to be spayed about a month ago. She is 7 months old, and I’m not completely certain when dogs go into heat, but I figured it was probably soon for her. And even though the carpet in our apartment is less than perfect I don’t need any new gross stains, if you know what I’m sayin’.

So I call our vet and set up an appointment and ask some questions about what we need to do beforehand to get her ready to be butchered. And since we are living on a crazy tight budget, I had to ask the money question.

“By the way, how much will it be?”

“Well how much does she weigh?”

“About 55 pounds.”

“Ok, then it will probably be around….um…300 or 350.”

“DOLLARS?!”

Needless to say, I started looking for other places to get her fixed. Turns out, the Humane Society spays and neuters animals for $60, AND they are open weekends. I made an appointment with them and then called my vet to cancel the one I had just made with her.

“No problem! The Humane Society is a great place to get it done. We’re more expensive because we’re a private practice, but she will be just fine with them. If anything seems off with her after the surgery, bring her in to us and we will see her for free. No problem at all.”

I love you, Heights Veterinary Clinic!

So I wake up Sunday, leave SK asleep in the apartment, and take unsuspecting little Bella down to get her womanly parts extracted. She was NOT happy as we sat there waiting for them to come get her. She had her tail between her legs, was shaking, and kept looking at me like, Lady, I can SMELL the badness that is this place. What the fuck am I doing here?!? I’m not exaggerating at all when I tell you that when they walked her back and she threw me one last sad, pleading look, my heart broke a little.

We picked her up that afternoon and after sitting in the waiting room for what felt like FOREVER they called our name and she came trotting out. TROTTING. Not kidding. Her tail was wagging, she had happy Bella face, and minus the goop around her eyes from being out for a few hours, she pretty much looked like she was coming off a sweet day at a doggie spa. Glad I spent my afternoon worrying while she spent hers getting massaged and pampered.

Once she got in the car though, she crashed out. She sat in the back seat with SK and really didn’t move at all. We laid her on the bed in the extra room when we got home and there she stayed all evening long. We even ate dinner on the bed right next to her and she never once lifted her head. She was so stoned.

She’s been sleeping in our room, in her kennel, so that I can hear her if she cries or starts to mess around with her stitches. They told me to check her stitches every day to make sure that they looked ok and weren’t doing anything weird or gross. Ew. So I check her stomach on Monday and I swear to God I can’t even see where they stitched her up! I’m guessing that’s good…? I mean, I can tell where the incision was made, but her stitches look pretty non-existent, and she doesn’t seem to be in any pain so I am happy with that. What I DID see though was odd…

She has a tat.

Yep. She has a tattoo! My 7 month old DOG has a tattoo. I don’t even have a tattoo! And to be quite honest with you, I have no fucking clue what it is. It is like a little circle with a cross through it. The weirdest thing, though, is that it’s nowhere close to where the stitch line is. It’s like 7 inches down from there, close to the inside of her right hind leg. WTF??

SK and I have been making up stories about what it could mean. Is she in a Humane Society cult? Did the doctor mess up and cut the wrong place? Is she now missing a kidney or something? Keep her away from the booze!

I like to think she did something crazy while waiting to be spayed. Like bit someone’s hand off as they were approaching her with the anesthesia. Because she was so wild and scary, they branded her for life. Now everyone will see her ink and know SHE is the crazy motherfucker that caused all the trouble on the south side of town.

Gangsta’ Bella in the house, ya’ll.